"My dear Mrs. Fermitage, I pray you in no way to be excited. We have not heard all of the story, and we know that servants who are of a faithful kind exaggerate slights to their masters. It was one of the Squire's old servants who went. Your own would, perhaps, have known better. But now, may I see the things Mrs. Sharp sent you?"
"You may. And you may take them, if you like. Or rather, I should say that I beg you to take them. They ought to be in your custody. Will you oblige me by taking them, Russel, and carefully inspecting them? For that, of course, you must have daylight. Take them in the paper, just as they came, and keep them until I ask for them. They can be of no importance, because they are not what I lent to Gracie. Except for my name on them, I am sure that I never could have remembered them. They were darned in the days when I was poor. How often I wish that I still were poor! Then nobody wanted to plot against me, and even to steal my stockings! Oh, Russel, do you think they have murdered my darling because she was to have my money?"
"No, I think nothing of the kind! I believe that our darling Grace is alive; and I believe it tenfold since I saw these things! I am not very old in the ways of the world; and my judgment has always been wrong throughout. But my faith is the same as the grand old Squire's, though forty years of life behind him. I firmly believe that, blindly as we ourselves have managed everything, all will be guided aright for us; and happiness, even in this world, come. Because, though we have done no great good, we have done harm to no one; and the Lord in heaven knows it! Also, He knows that we trust in Him, so far as the trouble allows us. Very well; I will take these stockings home. You shall hear from me on Monday. I believe that our Grace is alive; and God will enable me to deliver her! Please Him, I will never leave off till then!"
The young man looked so grand and strong in his faith, and truth, and righteousness, that the elderly lady said no word, but let her eyes flow, and kissed him. He placed the stockings in an inner pocket, carelessly wrapped in their paper; and he rode home apace to please his mother; and having a cold on him from all his wettings, he perspired freely; and at every stretch of his galloping horse he was absorbing typhus fever.